This Week In Techdirt History: November 14th - 20th

from the long-ago dept

Five Years Ago

This week in 2016, we were dealing with the fallout of Trump's election. It was apparent that the First Amendment was under attack given things like Trump's constant whining about the New York Times, we spotted some big copyright problems with Trump's transition website, the incoming administration was preparing to gut the FCC's reforms, and the TTP was dead (for the wrong reasons) but we feared what would come next. At the same time, the role of fake news and fact checking became a prominent subject as people tried to figure out what happened.

Ten Years Ago

This week in 2011, it's no surprise that the single biggest subject was SOPA. The House Judiciary Committee was holding hearings that were stacked five-to-one in favor of censoring the internet (though they insistently denied this was the case) — and they were predictably a lovefest for the bill. We featured pieces on how SOPA would be bad for filmmakers, online music services, VPNs and other important security and privacy tools, video games, investment in innovation, the health of Americans, and even the websites of Canadians. Opposition to the bill started lining up: major internet companies, lawyers and law professors, hackers, the ACLU, consumer rights groups, human rights groups, and all kinds of other people — not to mention general public opinion. But the fight was far from over...

Fifteen Years Ago

This week in 2006, we took a look at the intense hatred of the RIAA for the Consumer Electronics Association which was aptly opposing their propaganda, one defendant in a RIAA lawsuit was hoping to be covered by the settlement with Kazaa, and Larry Lessig was challenging the constitutionality of opt-out copyright. The MPAA was suing a firm for loading legally-owned DVDs onto iPods, while Universal Music was going after MySpace. There was still a lot of bandwagon-jumping from companies when it came to social media features and video sharing platforms, while we were concerned about YouTube's trigger-happy lawyers going after third-party tools. Also, we saw an important Section 230 ruling in a lawsuit against Craigslist.

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Filed Under: history, look back